By Matthew Beaudin
Editor
Published: Wednesday, December 8, 2010 3:59 PM CST
Research in animal tests has forged links between reproductive issues and uranium mining and its byproducts, such as death of fetuses, reduced pregnancy rates and skeletal defects. Newer research is also pushing the same premise, claiming that uranium cuts the amount of oocytes — female germ cells that are essentially immature egg cells produced in the ovaries — in half.
The research is part of a rising tide of studies that focus on mining’s impacts on future generations rather than those who became sick after working in the mines.
The findings were presented in a talk on Monday night by Dr. Doug Brugge, a Tufts University professor of public health who’s studied the uranium industry’s health effects on the Navajo Nation.
“There are almost no birth outcome studies about uranium mining,” Brugge said, noting mining company funded studies that virtually stated uranium mining wasn’t dangerous shouldn’t serve as the end-all analysis.
“We should not allow a study of narrow focus to suggest to us that there’s nothing outside of that,” he said.
An unpublished study took a look at exposure in the Church Rock area of Arizona, where old mines litter the landscape. That study looked at individual levels of exposure and associated that with an outcome — a highly specific approach. The findings?
Kidney problems, hypertension and even diabetes risks increase the closer one lives to mine features.
The list goes on: A 2010 study of cultured human kidney and pulmonary cells found that uranium exposure caused 70 over-expressed and 112 under-expressed genes involved in cell defense, cell signaling and apoptosis.
The talk came at a particularly relevant time: In just five weeks the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment will decide to either approve or deny a uranium mill in the western stretches of Colorado, smack between Telluride and Moab. That mill could kick the mines on the western slope — of which there are thousands — back to life.
Telluriders have taken up arms against the mill, alleging health concerns and evoking the tarnished legacy of the uranium industry in the Uravan Mineral Belt.
The Town of Telluride, which helped sponsor the talk, has already sent two letters to the CDPHE and was expected to send a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency this week.
Concerns in Telluride have blown in with the wind: mining byproducts, some say, could travel from Paradox to Telluride on the wings of windstorms.
“People that live in Telluride and visit here greatly appreciate our scenic beauty, our water and our air.
As we strive to continue to protect our environment, we must be diligent about anything that can negatively affect that environment,” Mayor Stu Fraser said at the talk in a prepared statement. “Quite simply, we believe that the winds from the west should not become a medium that makes our air and water less pure or less safe.”
An Australian study, according to Dr. Brugge, found evidence of uranium transport several miles from the site. The element is particularly heavy, he said.
“There is some evidence of transport over distances…. The other thing I would say is that radon is not so heavy. It’s a molecule,” he said, meaning it could “glom” onto other particles.
Radon, a gas, is present in mining operations and causes “an incredible amount of damage” once it’s in the human body, Brugge said.
The exact health effects of uranium mining itself are hard to glean.
Did the miner smoke, which could also cause lung cancer? Are they genetically prone to other illnesses that could mirror symptoms of a lifetime of mining?
“What do you do with imperfect knowledge?” he asked the crowd at the Palm, which appeared to be opposed to the mill by in large. This much, though, seemed clear: “[The] closer you are, that’s going to be a greater concern.”
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